Microprocessor designer and seller Advanced Micro Devices - the onetime chip manufacturer - is marking its 40th year in the chip racket business. today, the company said it has shipped more than 500 million x86 and x64 chips, Oh, and it also announced a shameless ultra-thin notebook giveaway through Twitter, hoping to convince …

COMMENTS

IBM won't close Fishkill

For one thing it is a Superfund site ready to be put on the list. They don't need the publicity or the cost. So that division isn't making money right now, who is. With all of the tax breaks that they get out of the State of New York. The political cost is way too high.

AMD could have done better.

"What makes AMD cool is rather good chip design and pushing the envelope on the x86 and x64 architecture in ways that you can bet that Intel would never had done on its own - or at least not at the fast pace Intel has been compelled to do a few times in its history because AMD was out in front with better chip designs."

x86 should have died. Too many complex legacy modes and instructions. You're right that Intel was abandoning the x86 to make inroads with new designs. It's unfortunate, although understandable, that AMD took the route it did by pursuing to extend the life of the x86 architecture. As a result, we're left with even more complex modes and longer electron paths due to the extra transistors required.

That being said, I've been a fan of AMD's prices. I haven't purchased AMD since the Phenom VT bugs however.

Wait a minute... people have been beating on Sun for declining revenue and lack of profits - and IBM with their Mainframe, POWER, and x64 systems is running into the same issues?

Anonymous posts, "So that division isn't making money right now, who is."

That is an interesting comment. Sun basically thought the same thing, after the post-Y2K recession, exhibiting itself as the "dot-com bust".

Is Mr. Morgan correct, in believing that the IBM's Systems and Technology group should leverage the $4.2bn GlobalFoundries fab (instead of building a new fab for a money losing organization) or make the same mistake as Sun did?